


Falling

by Prix



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Grief, Loneliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:49:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26769046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prix/pseuds/Prix
Summary: Maybe she just wants to scream at someone.
Relationships: Chell & Wheatley (Portal), Chell/Wheatley (Portal)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 35
Collections: Fictober20, Froday Flash Fiction Little & Monthly Specials 2020





	Falling

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the "no, come back!" [Fictober Event](https://fictober-event.tumblr.com/post/628547358001594368/fictober-event-the-prompts-for-2020) prompt. 
> 
> It also fulfills the [**silence**](https://prixmium.dreamwidth.org/32039.html) prompt on my FFFC 100 Prompt Table.
> 
> Can be read as Chelley or not.

Chell wanders through tall, golden grass for such a long time before she sees anything at all. The fresh air almost stings her lungs, but it is the sweetest smell she can remember. The fresh, unfiltered air feels different, and she doesn’t know if it helps or hinders her progress lugging the companion cube along with one arm and then the other. 

It is heavy, and she had almost left it behind. Then something pinged in the back of her mind, soft and strange like the scrawled warnings that she had sometimes seen on the walls back in the facility. 

_Weighted **Storage** Cube_. 

She does not know if its weight is the cube itself or if there is something inside. She also doesn’t know how to open it. The only thing that makes her decide to start her journey with it, its path mashing down the golden grass in a very clear trail that almost matches hers, is that she cannot imagine that GLaDOS would have sent it with her if it were meaningless. 

Chell still feels a tight, wrenching sensation in her gut when she realizes that she is outside rather than dead. She had seen the four laser-sights pointed at her out of the turrets’ tall, narrow bodies, and she had exhaled – with understanding, if not acceptance – but then something _strange_ had happened. 

It is still happening. 

Small flashes of what Chell thinks are memories come as she walks along. Sunlight through a window pane. The soft jolt of a car rolling over a fault in the pavement. People. 

She wonders where the people are. 

Evening approaches, and it is dusk before she ever reaches a change of scenery. The golden grass gives way to shorter grass, and not far beyond there is a stream. Along the edge of the stream, trees grow and rocks sit there, undisturbed and silent. 

_Water._

It occurs to Chell that she has not needed to see to eating or drinking on her own for years. Her brow furrows as she grunts and tugs and trudges onward. Finally, on some of the shorter grass, she leaves the Companion Cube behind. Her shoulders sag with relief, and she notes that she can _smell_ the water, too. 

She doesn’t know why she thinks that is strange, but her mouth tries to feebly fill itself with saliva. 

She approaches the stream and finds a place to fall to her knees. Without much apprehension, she cups her hands and brings some of the water to her face. She slurps from it, eagerly, and does it again and again and again. Finally, her breathing steadies, and she pauses for a moment. 

She peers at her reflection. There is a cut through her eyebrow again. She has two eyebrows, which – again – occurs to her as odd, but she doesn’t care enough to linger on the thought. There are other nicks and cuts and deep bruises all over her body. She hasn’t had time to care for them or to care about them at all. 

She cups her hands and draws more water up to her face, only she closes her eyes and splashes it across it. She feels water droplets slipping down the side of her neck and into her shirt. They are cooler than sweat. 

Methodically, she washes her exposed skin, but before long she catches herself laughing once at the sensation of her clothes becoming sodden with anything but sweat and blood. 

The sound of her own voice startles her. 

She has been alone for such a long time. Then, she had decided to _stop speaking_ to _them_ , since it did no good at all. Now, there is nothing to stop her voice or hold her tongue. She reaches up and rubs at her sore larynx. Part of her had feared that something they had done to her might have taken it away, after all. 

She clears her throat after a moment but otherwise makes no sound. 

It is approaching dark by the time she drags the Cube to the trunk of a tree. She sits down with her back to the trunk of a different, neighboring tree and peers at the Cube, thoughtfully. She sees no immediate clue as to its latching mechanism. 

With a grim compression of her lips, Chell wonders if sending the Cube might have been GLaDOS’s idea of a cruel joke, after all. 

A bitter sort of calculation begins to run in Chell’s brain. It starts to suggest all the reasons the Cube might be so heavy. 

_Useful supplies. Food, water, medicine, **shower curtains**._

None of those seem likely, after all. 

_Chemical storage._

She has already seen how the facility’s blood runs through it, though. 

_Toxic failure deterrent._

She can hope not, barely. 

_A body._

She does not know where that thought comes from, but it makes her crinkle her nose with actual distaste. She sniffs at the clean air and does not notice anything she would consider a sign of decay. If the Cube contains a dead body, though, it would likely either be reduced to a skeleton by now or otherwise so well-preserved that decay could not have reached it. Either way, she suddenly feels less enthusiastic about the idea of opening it. 

The more sentimental reason GLaDOS could have sent the Cube along occurs to her – morbidly – shortly after the idea that the Cube’s contents may have once been a person files itself away as another grisly thing to be prepared for. 

Maybe GLaDOS had sent the Cube with her to _be her friend_. 

She recalls the exercise as if it had been only days ago, though she knows better. 

One corner of her mouth tugs higher than the other in a faint, satisfied smirk. 

It is a pointless victory, especially now, but she stares at the emblem at the Cube’s center which makes it unique. The Cube’s battered body would be something to be pitied, if it could feel a thing at all. She has never, for a moment, been convinced that it can. If it does, it has suffered in silence, which is something they have in common. 

Tilting her head at it, she cranes to one side and then the other, searching for some difference that would be a place to press or pry. 

Finding none, she slides across to sit upon her knees in front of it. Before she tries to sleep, she will give it one more close examination. In daylight, maybe she can wash off the soot and grime and have better luck. 

It is cool to the touch but not cold. There is nothing about it that feels alive. 

It isn’t like _them_ – the Aperture scientists nor the machines they had left in their wake. 

After a while, Chell gives up and returns to her own tree. 

She shrugs the tattered sleeves of the jumpsuit back up onto her arms, hugging herself and trying to find a comfortable way to lean her head back against the tree bark. 

Another strange shudder runs through her when she rests her gaze on the Cube because it is the most familiar thing to look at while she tries to let her guard down enough to fall asleep. She tastes something bitter in her mouth and draws enough saliva to swallow. 

She is alone here. 

She is free. 

And the _Companion_ Cube is not any companion at all. 

She lets her gaze drift upward, and through the branches of the trees, she sees the cold light of the stars above her. Her eyes are drawn toward the moon, which is still almost as bright and clear as it had been when she had seen it – big, beautiful, and the only, mad hope she had – through the roof. 

_He’s still there._

It is an unwelcome thought. As soon as she has it, Chell sits upright and looks down at the ground. She places one hand against it, trying to stop feeling dizzy. She shakes her head. 

The reaction only seems to make it worse. 

Her arms are _so cold_ , and she can feel herself _falling_ up into space. 

There is a sudden rush of harsh warmth, more her own blood rushing to the bruising force than the clamp, but the clamp is warmer than the lack of air around the moon. 

_“Grab me, grab me, grab me!”_ he begs. 

She searches for some hardness within her, for the thought that she would not have done what he pleaded for her to do had she had the chance. 

She can’t find it. 

His voice had sounded so _human_ , and all she can think about is _falling_. 

She wishes he were here. She wishes she could find her voice and scream at him. 

She wishes he weren’t just _gone_. It isn’t fair, even in the spirit of vengeance, and she wishes she weren’t alone.


End file.
